Portland Woman Says She Was Burned by a Police Flashbang Grenade

 



According to The Guardian, August 6, 2018 - A woman who protested against a rightwing group rallying in Portland, Oregon, said she has been left with severe injuries to her arm and chest after being hit by a police “flash-bang” round.

Michelle Fawcett, 52, said she was about half a block from the front of the counter-protester gathering, as they opposed rightwing group Patriot Prayer’s rally, at about 2pm on Saturday when she was hit.

“I heard the most earth-shattering explosion,” she told the Guardian. “I felt struck in the chest, then the arm, and then a really intense and searing pain.”

When Fawcett, a documentary film-producer, later saw a doctor, she was told she had severe soft tissue injuries and third-degree chemical burns on her arm and chest. Fawcett shared with the Guardian photographs of her injuries and her doctor’s report that describes chemical burns.

On Sunday, Portland police said that their less-lethal weapons attacks were provoked by protesters’ “violent and assaultive behaviour” – in particular their use of projectiles. This has been disputed by protesters and journalists.

Live video from the news website Unicorn Riot appears to show projectiles flying only after the police move in to clear SW Columbia Street, where Fawcett was standing.

Other video from the event appears to show police directing their fire towards protesters on a flat trajectory, and moving in on journalists and others filming events from a sidewalk.

Fawcett said: “I didn’t see anybody doing anything, other than maybe some chanting. I wouldn’t have been having a casual conversation, as a non-violent middle-aged woman, if people had been throwing things nearby.”

“The point is that it was totally indiscriminate,” Fawcett said. “They fired, and clearly they had no idea what they were firing towards.”

On Sunday morning, Portland police said six kinds of “riot control agents and less-lethal impact munitions” had been fired into the crowd, including 40mm “impact rounds” whose diameter would be consistent Fawcett’s injuries.

(A similar wound on a different protester in Portland)

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I am not particularly a fan of Antifa, or BLM, or Proud Boys, any of these other groups that go out and protest in the streets. These protests turn public opinion against your group, and blur the message you are trying to get out. That being said all of these groups have a First Amendment right to peacefully assemble and protest is they choose to do so.

Police use of munitions of the type seen in Portland, fired into crowds of people demonstrating on a public street is I believe excessive. Riot control devices are intended to control riots. They should never be used to suppress political demonstrations.

In response to the multiple injuries of protesters: Portland Police Suspend Use of “Flash-Bang” Grenades After Reports That Several Protesters Were Severely Injured By the Weapons.

Police Chief Danielle Outlaw and Assistant Chief Ryan Lee say the Portland Police Bureau has suspended use of "flash-bang" grenades after reports that multiple people were severely injured as officers drove back a crowd of antifascist protesters on Aug. 4, 2018.